Secret Family Jutsu
by Quill of Molliemon
Summary: One-shot, pre-Naruto. Kushina decides to share a jutsu that her older brothers taught her with Minato... Minato rather wishes that she hadn't. Read, review, and enjoy!


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto, I make no money, so please don't sue…

**Notes:** I hesitate to label this AU/AR…because I can see this possibly happening in canon.

A humorous little one-shot set pre-Naruto (Minato and Kushina are genin).

Enjoy!

* * *

**Secret Family Jutsu**

Uzumaki Kushina stormed into her tiny apartment, collapsed onto her bed, and screamed into her pillow in frustration.

_That stupid boy makes me so mad!_

Once her need for venting was through, she rolled over onto her back and glared peevishly at the crack in her ceiling.

Namikaze Minato was the village golden boy. He was well-mannered and generally friendly. He was a prodigy with ninjutsu. He was good-looking with sparkly blue eyes and sunny yellow hair.

…He was _too_ good.

She was a refugee from a collapsed country that was so small and so backwater that few people had even heard of it. She had no family, not anymore, and no reputation other than as a loud-mouth tomboy. And she was a _girl_.

He didn't respect her at all.

_I'll show him! …Somehow._

She'd already tried to earn his respect through competition. In spars, he was too fast to really touch and she rarely achieved more than landing a few superficial cuts or glancing blows before he trounced her. When they ended up on the same team for a lousy D-rank, he would always finish first and do better than her, no matter what the lame task was. She beat him in trash-talking, but he never really played along with that. He knew more jutsus and better jutsus than she did…

…It seemed hopeless.

_No! There's a way to beat his prodigy butt! There has to be!_

Kushina hopped off her bed and started to pace the length of her small room.

_Think, think, think!_

She tugged at her chin-length red hair and snarled in frustration.

_How to knock a speed demon on his ass…_

A light went on behind her eyes, and she tapped her chin thoughtfully. She stopped pacing and started mumbling to herself as she worked out her plan. When she found her idea sound, she smiled ferally and made the necessary preparations.

* * *

Namikaze Minato stood in a training field where there were targets set up. He centered himself, threw all of his kunai as fast as he could and as accurately as he could at a target, did the same with his shuriken, collected his weapons from the target, and did it all over again. It was all about speed. Get the motions down, get the speed and accuracy up, make everything instinctual. Fractions of a second can count in a fight for life and death.

Minato had just finished retrieving his weapons so he could go through another round of speed throwing when he was interrupted.

"Hey, Namikaze!"

The blonde genin cringed and reluctantly turned around to face his visitor.

"Yes, Uzumaki-san, what is it?" he asked, struggling to keep a polite tone.

Uzumaki Kushina was one of the most annoying people he knew. She was loud and obnoxious and crude. She had some weird obsession with showing him up. Whenever he wanted peace and quiet, to rest or to train, she seemed to appear and do her level best to drive him insane. She was the biggest pest in the whole village and he wondered if he'd ever be rid of her.

The scruffy-looking tomboy calmly walked right up to him, stopping bare feet away. "I was hoping that you could help me with something."

Minato was struck speechless for a moment. He had not been expecting that. Where was the loud challenge? The string of curses and insults?

"What do you need help with?" he asked warily.

"A jutsu," she answered. "I want your opinion on it."

He blinked. "What jutsu?"

"This jutsu that my older brothers would use on me sometimes," she replied. "They'd do it to pick on me, because it's not lethal or anything. It doesn't seem useful for much else, but…" The red-head sighed. "Well, since you're so smart, I was wondering if you could help me figure out how to improve it…or something."

"Oh." He smiled. "Okay."

That wasn't so bad. In fact, it was great! He loved messing with jutsu. And if she wanted help instead of pestering him, all the better!

"So what's this jutsu?"

She squirmed a bit. "Well…I'm kinda bad at describing things, so can I just show you?"

"Show me?" He nervously scratched at the back of his head. "Is that safe?"

"Perfectly safe!" she declared. "I said already that it's not lethal. It really doesn't do any damage at all. That's why I was hoping for help."

"Okay," he agreed. "Show me then."

"Alright!" she grinned broadly. "First, you do this," she said and folded her hands into the tiger seal and held it for a moment. "And then you do this," she continued and shifted her hands into…something. It wasn't a hand seal; at least, any hand seal variation that he'd ever seen before. "And then," her eyes glittered, "you attack like this!"

And then her body dissolved into a splash of water.

_A water clone?!_

His blue eyes darted from side to side as he tried to locate her.

_Is she behind—_

"_**Sennen Goroshi**_!"

* * *

Jiraiya casually strolled through the training grounds just outside the village in search of his prize pupil. He'd promised Minato that he'd come and find the boy and give him some extra training. Today was supposed to be a day off for his little brood of students because they'd just returned to the village after completing a C-rank mission, but still the blonde boy wanted to train.

_My crazy, prodigy student,_ Jiraiya chuckled to himself. _Hell, if he can keep this up without burning out, he could very well become the next Hokage…_

Just as the towering, white-haired ninja passed a training field with throwing targets set up, the sound of loud, hysterical laughter caught his attention. Intrigued, Jiraiya shifted course and moved to investigate. When he entered the clearing…he really didn't know what to think.

Uzumaki Kushina, the ragged tomboy from _Uzu no Kuni,_ was rolling around on the ground laughing so hard that she was crying.

Namikaze Minato, his beloved little student, was curled up in the fetal position with his face in the dirt and his rear pointed skyward.

_…Did she get him with a groin shot?_

Jiraiya cautiously approached the scene.

"I…I win!" the Uzumaki girl wheezed through her laughter. "I…I totally…_owned_ you!"

Minato made no reply.

Jiraiya crouched beside his prone student. "…Are you alive?"

"Yes," the boy whispered hoarsely.

"What did she do to you?"

"…I'd rather not say."

Jiraiya sat back on his heels for a minute. "Do you need help getting home?"

"Yes," Minato whimpered.

"Sitting on ice packs helps!" the tomboy cackled.

"I hate you!" the blonde genin hissed.

"Oh! Oh!" Kushina cried excitedly. "I got Namikaze to admit that he hates someone! Two accomplishments in one day! I'm _awesome_!"

Jiraiya shook his head, gently scooped Minato up, and carried him from the field.

_I really don't want to know…_

* * *

_Sennen Goroshi_ = One thousand years of pain/death


End file.
